Hungryghosts*r*us

I was over visiting “Wish Jar” , Keri Smith’s blog and she was writing about a great little  firefox ad-on to block ads! Not only does it block ads but it gives you a little “art” to fill the spaces left when it takes away the ad. Can’t beat that! She’s been testing it, seeing as how it was created by her friend steve and she says its wonderful! amazing! I’ve tried it now too and I agree! Check out ad-art, if you use firefox. If you don’t use firefox go get it now and feel the freedom and space you create with it! Best of all, it is free.

Scurrying to make a fresh post and plump up some cushions overhere, since I just invited new pals round from stitchin fingers. And suddenly realised I hadn’t posted in a while….

Welcome if you are a first time visitor - do browse back to the early posts, there are all manner of musings and nourishing treats back there.

Creative contentments coming from my stitchin fingers experience include having gotten on with my documentation of stitchings and allsorts, done through the winter. There were photos unposted, work unphotographed. And suddenly I have the juice to get on and do things of this ilk again.

An acquisitive zone of potential excess which I’ve come aware of these few days is that of online gallery-ing. Between typepad and dotmac, I thought I had it covered. Now I want to flap things around on sf too, and there’s a recommendation to use our flickr accounts. I wrote about my flickr ambivalence here a while back, in “Enough, For Now.” I love it so much for gathering inspirations. But to post on there too? How many online pic-sites is a woman to tend? I’ll figure it out, of course…

Glad to Report there has been but one eb*y purchase overhere for Quite Some Time.
And that was a book. A small paperback.
I managed to call a halt, and stay halted, for now…
And now there’s a StashBustin group at sf, so I can indulge in some getting-clear-again anti-shopping activity. Perfect for Mercury Retro in Gemini times…

Something EckHart said about not seeking a sense of self in the forms helped unhook something recently. A little more Peaceful space in here, a little less gottagoshoppings out there….

f o r n o w.

Thank you xxx

ps - the pic shows a Thing I stitched, incorporating a doiley from my vast basket of doileys, bought during an extented season of decidedly addictive acquisition. I got so exhausted from buying them all, I couldn’t face doing anthing further with them. Till recently…

xxx

Isn’t this beautiful!??

Video of kids watching TV by Godfrey Reggio, director of Koyaanisqatsi.

Don’t need to say much more than that!  (But in case you want more you can visit my blog.)

Here are the quotes from A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle, which I’ve been putting in my Flower over at Oprah’s site, over the last few weeks. I’m enjoying the course so much.

I’ve done a Lot of buying alongside, which I’ve been a bit embarrassed to fess up to here.
I think a general admission will suffice for now. Detailed inventory is just too much information…
Suffice to say, I think I am done with my acquisitive stint, for Now. xxx

Click to read the splendid quotes

Do you know about Earth Hour?

On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.

What a wonderful class, wonderful teacher and wonderful Oprah!!!

During a trip to the gulf coast of Mississippi after Katrina, I met a physician who had lost everything in the hurricane. Katrina had destroyed all his possessions, his home, cars, community - everything. I asked him how he survived. He was reading Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth” at the time and he felt that it saved his life, teaching him that this loss of everything he thought he was (all his stuff) was really a radical new kind of freedom. He felt Tolle really helped him to understand that the ego’s clinging to stuff is really quite unnecessary. I’d heard of Tolle but only started reading his work after meeting with this physician. And he’s right. There’s a very real possibility to touch this freedom if you read the book.

Now Oprah’s “A New Earth” class is amazing. You can watch it live with Oprah and Eckhart discussing the book in terms of real life questions from class participants and from Oprah. Eckhart answers them all so easily. It’s like having the book come to life! Although I can’t stay up that late AND think at the same time, I find the watching the class the day after to be excellent.
If you are interested in joining the class,don’t worry don’t worry about what you missed, all the classes are kept on line so feel free to sign up today.

Here’s a clip for you.

(for another clip and a few more thoughts, see my blog)

There’s a lovely ‘Flower’ project in the online workbook for the course which Lanigaki and I are enjoying, over at Oprah’s site. The course is looking at Eckhart Tolle’s book: ‘A New Earth’, along with a very big bunch of other folks. There are ten weekly online classes, viewable live (we hope!) and in various archived forms; and all kinds of connective goings on. And all free. Tonight’s, the second class, is happening soon…

The ‘Flower’ is created by adding a couple of quotes from each chapter, each week. I’m finding it helpful. Here are my quotes for this week. They have a Hungryghosts*r*us relevance.

“Many people don’t realize until they are on their deathbed and everything external falls away that no thing ever had anything to do with who they are. In the proximity of death, the whole concept of ownership stands revealed as ultimately meaningless. In the last moments of their life, they then also realize that while they were looking throughout their lives for a more complete sense of self, what they were really looking for, their Being, had actually always already been there, but had been largely obscured by their identification with things, which ultimately means identification with their mind.”
Page 43

“How do you let go of attachment to things? Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them. In the meantime, just be aware of your attachment to things.”
Page 45

“The thought forms of “me” and “mine”, of “more than”, of “I want”, “I need”, “I must have”, and of “not enough” pertain not to content but to the structure of the ego. The content is interchangeable.”
Page 48

xxx

“I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible, loving, human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride.” -William James

Do you know the “The Not So Big House” books by Sarah Susanka, the architect who got tired of McMansions, conspicuous consumption, unsustainable architectural practices? She’s very interested in what makes a place feel like home, thinking it may have less to do with scale and more to do with quality. Now she’s created “The Not So Big Life: Making Room for what Really Matters” a book about creating a sustainable life where form and function serve life goals rather than the other way around. A Not So Big Life describes her process of inner transformation through which she found more meaning, vitality and that sense of being “at home” in life, something that many of us long for today. Take a look at her website, especially the resources section (where you can download free information) and think about the idea of a “Not So Big Life.”

I read somewhere that someone realised she could enjoy as much pleasure in getting rid of things as she had in buying them in the first place. I’ve experienced that too, this week; clearing out some no-longer-joyful acquisitions.

Reclaiming the space and reducing the stuff I share my home with is deeply satisfying. Maybe even more so than the original buyer’s buzz.

I was talking about that with a pal, and we agreed it would be good if we could turn that buyer’s hunger on to our already-here stuff ; if we could go to our well-laden bookshelves with the same edgy getting-something-new excitement as we do when we go shopping, in any form. One thing I figured a while back was that I could take that ‘want something new’ impulse to the library, and get new-to-me things, and for free, there. I could satisfy that desire to select and to take, the primal hunt-and-gather thing maybe, and I could even enjoy the added contentment of knowing this is not clutter-to-be, this is short-term stash. And if I really want to actually spend money, then some dvd rentals are added in the mix. Libraries as a kind of methodone for book-junkies… Sometimes, it works. For specific gotta-have-that-nows, the instant online grab-shopping is probably always going to be the thing, but for the times when it’s more of a generic shopping / ‘want-new-mirrors’ thing, then the library can be a fine supplier.

Clearing stuff out, to relish the acquisition/creation of more space is really the creative contentment of the moment, overhere, though.

Pic is from the cover view at my bookshelf on librarything. (Ok, I admit; not all my books are on there.) xxx

Do you know Frances Moore Lappé? Do you remember Diet for a Small Planet? Here’s her video introduction to her newest book:

Once you view the video, if you are interested in the book, she’s got a great website with downloadable Intro, Table of Contents, one of the books chapters and lots more. Take a look.

xxx

Collage by Lani

(This blog entry is from my own blog but not everyone likes colorful lettering on black so I’m repeating it here on white)

Adela sent me a couple of links the other day which I believe are perfect for the Burning Man Immediacy Principle. (see previous post) Do you know about the slow food movement, or Adbusters Slow Down Week? There’s a rebellion brewing about the fast pace of life today. So here are Adela’s links: Slow Time: Recovering the Natural Rhythm of Life by Waverly Fitzgerald is a wonderful eBook, and this website offers the Introduction of the book as a free PDF file so you can read some of it for yourself. Very thoughtful. You can also purchase a hard copy version through Amazon.com. For more on slow time, seasons, and Immediacy principle please read on.
Read the rest of this entry »

Permission Ticket by Lani

(This blog entry is from my own blog but not everyone likes colorful lettering on black so I’m repeating it here on white)

Are you looking for treasure? While wandering the burning man web site, trying to imagine this coastal-loving, ocean-dependent maritimer wandering in the desert, I stumbled across some real treasure! They have the most wonderful principles! I think I’ll just see if I can’t translate them into puppet-maker principles, and give myself permission to practice them.

10 Principles

Radical Inclusion
Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

This is easy, I would turn it into “Any one may make puppets, crafts, and art, even me.”
Read the rest of this entry »

One of my creative contentments is to type out inspiring pieces written by other folks.

This poem, below, was written by John O’Donohue (1954 - 2008).

His recent sudden death has brought for me even more Life into his sweet, lovely, deep writings.

If you scroll down at this generous trove, you’ll find video of him; speaking, giggling, and reading some of his work.

Now I’ve seen and heard those recordings of his presence and voice, I find his printed words even more moving than before.

~ x ~ x ~ x ~

For An Addict

Read the rest of this entry »

Do you know about “The Story of Stuff” which Adela clued me in to? There’s a great story on Alternet but their own website is great, lots of material and thought-provoking ideas, down loads, the movie, and recommended reading.

As for my own stuff, I have to admit that the past couple of months have been a fairly successful hungry-ghost-busting period of time. Before this recent successful period, I hadn’t even realized that I was doing this, but every time I’d do my groceries, I’d “have to” stop in at Michael’s (a large kind of creepy box store for arts and crafts folks) because I had a coupon from the newspaper and I’d look for something, anything, that I thought I needed, in order not to waste my coupon. I know, I know, have you ever heard of anything that silly? Maybe you have. But since the beginning of this blog , I’ve started to pay attention to habit like this. And because I got this idea about working with what I already have on hand here, from all my trips to Michael’s (etc.), I stopped turning into that particular parking lot. I feel quite liberated, AND I’ve been working up a storm, using just a fraction of what I have on hand, hardly making a dent. Amazing. It’s like I didn’t even realize it, but I have a huge amount of stuff, way more than enough, and it’s just waiting to get turned into things of beauty, or at least things that make me smile, and that is important.

So are you curious about what you can do to break the toxic stuff cycle?  Annie Leonard has a few ideas for you… Read the rest of this entry »

(Pic from bob the lomond, with some rights reserved. )

New Moon Greetings. I chose this pic before I saw the crescent Gracing it.

Now: flickr. I’m ambivalent. It’s a tricky place to keep my balance in.

I get into driven-ness, in the way that I can on ebay too, sometimes.

Anywhere online really, in so many ways.

Endless choices, no stop signs, only more and more and more options.

The choice to stop looking, hunting, gathering, has to come from me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Do you ever get the feeling that that life seems to be moving so quickly, that you are working so hard just to stay in one place, that you hardly have any time to breathe? Are you longing for someone to come along and give you a “time out” to create some art and nurture your self?

I was looking at a book the other day, “Spirit Whisperers: Teachers Who Nourish A Child’s Spirit” by Chick Moorman. Do you remember having a teacher like that, one that you remember their twinkle in the eye and that they saw something in you and helped you to recognize it yourself? I think it’s not just teachers that can be spirit whisperers. Sometimes a grandparent, relative, or even a friend can have that twinkle in the eye, and that ability to see your strengths and to nourish them.

My thinking here is that we can all be our own spirit whisperers, or we really need to be our own spirit whisperers. We can call our own “time out,” step off the tread mill for 20 minutes a day (minimum daily requirement according to psycoimmunologists’ research) and turn to our art journals for nourishment. For 20 minutes do the things that give you a deep and abiding pleasure. Laundry, dinner, the kids homework, what ever it is, 20 minutes later than usual doesn’t make a difference. But your spirit will notice! It will make a huge difference to you!

For more on this topic, please see my blogspot.